The Burned-Over District is a term used by some to describe the region of Western New York in the historical period of 1800-1850. It is also sometimes called the Second Great Awakening with a combination of religious, social and political elements.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

America, a Country

Steve Sailer, in one of his best articles, confesses to have rightly "found most talk about 'American exceptionalism' pernicious because it tends to imply that America needs to be exceptional to deserve what other countries rightfully take for granted" — The Joy of American Unexceptionalism. An excerpt:

America is definitely exceptional in our recommended daily intake of flapdoodle. To Finns or Japanese or other sensible folk, their countries don’t have to be special proposition nations, nor cities upon a hill redeeming the world, nor the rightful destinations of other countries’ huddled masses, nor the scourges of wrongdoing in the Levant. Instead, they are the past, present, and future homes of their own people. So their responsibility is to be good stewards for their heirs.

In contrast, the vague grandiosity of the ideology of American exceptionalism makes Americans easier to manipulate with contrived narratives. After all, the past is so vast that interested parties can pick and choose nearly any historical details they want in order to control the present and the future.